As new innovations continue to change the ways we work, radiology has a lot to gain from adopting new technology with confidence. But the biggest potential impact comes from deeply integrated solutions—not discrete, siloed tools that only make workflows more complex.

Previously, we’ve shared our insights on the challenges facing radiology, from workloads and backlogs to the perpetual pressure to reduce costs and find efficiencies. Today, those priorities remain critically important and the challenges faced in diagnostics only seem to intensify. Workflow gains are offset by the rise in chronic diseases and continued staff shortages – and the only way to meaningfully transform radiology is by extending the benefits of new workflows as widely as possible.

With Augnito, we’ve seen the most significant impact from AI-powered speech recognition that’s integrated with the systems radiologists and teleradiology providers already use every day.

The benefits of AI speech recognition in radiology

In the past few years, AI has been widely adopted across multiple industries and for a variety of tasks. These include data handling, generating content, and automating the routine tasks that take time away from more skilled work where the human touch is essential.

Healthcare is no different. Adopting a technology like speech recognition using AI has the potential to deliver considerable benefits, not just to individual users but entire Trusts and, ultimately, patients. These include:

• More accurate reporting
• Increased efficiency and faster workflows
• Managed security and compliance with cloud hosted solutions
• A reduced risk of errors
• More agility and the ability to report from anywhere.

However, while healthcare can unlock the same benefits as enterprises, the barriers to adoption are substantially different.

Making AI more accessible for radiology

In May 2024, The Royal College of Radiologists highlighted several major barriers to the adoption of AI. These included workforce shortfalls, outdated IT infrastructure, and educating radiologists to use new AI tools effectively. The report also emphasised the need for robust governance frameworks to bring control to the way new technologies are implemented, adopted and maintained.

Unlike other sectors, radiology’s adoption of AI is potentially hamstrung by the financial realities and organisational efficiencies of how healthcare works today.

In part, this can be addressed by making AI-powered solutions more accessible and adaptable. Augnito, for example, integrates sophisticated AI into a refreshingly straightforward and easy to use frontend. Radiologists can start with Augnito on any device with little or no training and, since Augnito is hosted in the cloud, there’s no need to be limited by an existing IT infrastructure.

Simultaneously, the time-savings achieved by Augnito lead to direct cost savings – on average, switching to speech recognition for reports (as opposed to slow manual transcription) creates an efficiency gain of around 5%. This could save £100,000s across an entire Trust, resources that can be repurposed into addressing the more fundamental barriers to transformation like legacy IT.

Integrating AI speech recognition with RIS/PACS

Another way we’re making AI more accessible in radiology is through our longstanding partnerships with leading Picture Archiving & Communication System (PACS) and Radiology Information System (RIS) providers.

Augnito has been integrated by Hexarad into its radiology reporting platform, empowering radiologists with a faster, more flexible way of reporting, reflecting Hexarad’s forward-thinking approach and position as Radiology Technology Innovator of the Year. In practice, Hexarad’s improvements to radiology workflows are positively impacting patients. An implementation in North West Anglia created time savings of up to 80 minutes per patient and Hexarad enables 30% more MSK scans per hour with its streamlined workflow including Augnito.

Similarly, Augnito is integrated with Intelerad’s PACS reporting, bringing voice recognition options into the reporting process. Intelerad’s InSight PACS is an established leader in the space, recognised Best in KLAS for the UK and Ireland PACS category in 2024.

At this year’s UK Imaging and Oncology (UKIO) congress 2024 in Liverpool, representatives from Intelerad and Hexarad presented discussions on trends, best practice, and the future of radiology. They were joined by other high-profile Scribetech partners with Augnito embedded into their solutions, including:

• Aptvision Ltd, with their e-referral portal, delivering better patient outcomes, reducing workloads for medical staff
• CIMAR UK Ltd, who recently joined forces with NHS England to deliver the AI Development Platform Pilot at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust that will enable the deployment of AI in medical imaging across the NHS
• Fujifilm Healthcare UK, who have integrated Augnito into their Universal Reporting module and presented this at UKIO along with new ultrasound imaging innovations and live demonstrations on its DeepInsight AI technology
• Magentus, with a new Managing Director at their UK helm and a team supporting more than 25 million imaging events each year across 700+ locations with its Cris Radiology Information System
• OpenRad Services UK Ltd – Biotronics 3D, showcasing its cloud-based, Augnito speech enabled remote reporting platform that includes the functionalities of a PACS, RIS and diagnostic 3D visualisation as distinct subscription packages with secure access from anywhere and from any device.

The integration of Augnito Voice Services into these partners’ platforms reflects the continued growth of Augnito AI powered speech recognition across radiology. While Scribetech has been an approved NHS solutions provider for over two decades, it brought Augnito to the UK market as a disruptive technology with a view to democratise the use of speech recognition across the continuum of care through Augnito’s value advantage – a better and more cost effective way for healthcare professionals to leverage the cloud and AI, to easily transform their patient data workflows. Now, 30 months later, Scribetech supports more than 2,000 UK radiologists who have switched to Augnito – through the company’s partnerships and direct channels. This year’s UKIO theme and message ‘Vision and Values: Putting People First’ resonates with the positive effect and impact that Augnito has had and is having on radiologists, and on patient imaging and diagnostics.

Learn more about Augnito

Interested in becoming an Augnito Spectra reseller, or an Augnito Voice Services integration partner? Contact us. See how Augnito makes cloud-based AI benefits more accessible to radiologists. Request a demo.

[London, 6 June 2024] – With deep, hassle-free, integration, Augnito is enabling continued transformation in radiology and supporting key solutions that will be showcased at UKIO 2024.

Taking place from 10th-12th June 2024 in Liverpool, the UK Imaging and Oncology (UKIO) congress is where leaders from across radiology come together to share best practice, discuss trends, undertake professional development, and learn about the latest state-of-the-art equipment and technology. The 2024 event will focus on the theme of ‘Vision and Values: Putting People First’.

Thanks to robust partnerships and extensive integration with leading platforms, Augnito speech recognition from Scribetech will be present at the event for the fourth year running.

“Nothing is more important to us than elevating fields across healthcare, and radiology is a particular focus,” stated Shiraz Austin, Managing Director at Scribetech (UK) Ltd and Co-Founder of Augnito. “Augnito Spectra, our own highly convenient frontend across desktop and mobile, is part of this approach, but integration is equally important. Technology providers understand the potential of speech recognition as an accessible way for healthcare to leverage the potential of AI. Our partnerships with award-winning providers using Augnito Voice Services to speech enable their platforms is key to how, together, we can bring the benefits of speech recognition to more radiologists.”

One of the solutions carrying Augnito Voice Services embedded inside is Intelerad’s InSight PACS,  adopted by over 250 NHS and private healthcare providers across the UK and Ireland. In February 2024, InSight PACS was recognised as a 2024 Best in KLAS: Global Software Report award winner. Crucially, this award was based on feedback from the solution’s users – the people who rely on radiology reporting technology every day.

Austin stated: “Clinical system developers and cloud imaging solution providers appreciate Augnito for its API and SDK allowing them to seamlessly add Voice Services to their offering. We’ve taken one-of-a-kind speech recognition, developed in partnership with clinicians, and made it easy to integrate into any existing diagnostics and radiology reporting platform. But what drives us is the response from radiologists. People have reported significant time savings, faster reports, and increased accuracy – all these benefits lead to smoother patient journeys and better outcomes. That’s what matters.”

Augnito is also integrated into Hexarad: Radiology Technology Innovator of the Year in the M&A Today Global Awards 2024. Hexarad was also awarded the Silver HSJ Partnership Award for Diagnostics Project of the Year for its partnership with the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. This project led to estimated time savings of up to 80 minutes per patient. Meanwhile, teleradiologists reporting on behalf of the trust received images within 25 minutes compared to 45 minutes using the previous system.

Representatives from these leading imaging solutions award winners will be attending UKIO 2024, (Hexarad), and exhibiting (Intelerad) alongside other high profile Scribetech partners using Augnito to speech-enable their systems. Exhibitors include Aptvision Ltd – with their e-referral portal, delivering better patient outcomes and reducing workloads for medical staff, CIMAR UK Ltd – who has recently joined forces with NHS England to deliver the AI Development Platform Pilot at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust that will then enable the deployment of AI in medical imaging across the NHS, Fujifilm Healthcare UK – has integrated Augnito into its Universal Reporting module and will be showing this at UKIO, as well as new ultrasound imaging innovations and live demonstrations on its DeepInsight AI technology, Magentus – with a new Managing Director at their UK helm and a team supporting more than 25 million imaging events each year across 700+ locations with its Cris Radiology Information System, and OpenRad Services UK Ltd – showcasing its cloud-based Augnito speech-enabled remote reporting platform that includes the functionalities of a PACS, RIS and diagnostic 3D visualisation as distinct subscription packages with secure access from anywhere and from any device.

This significant presence at UKIO reflects the continued growth of Augnito AI powered speech recognition across radiology.

Scribetech is also a member of AXREM, the UK trade association for suppliers of imaging and healthcare equipment. This gives the company insight into the current and emerging needs of radiologists and imaging professionals and helps ensure that its voice-driven AI powered and cloud based solution, Augnito, remains relevant, impactful and evolving in pace with demand.

“This will be the fourth year running, since launching Augnito technology, that it is being shown at UKIO through our partners,” added Austin. “And while Scribetech has been an approved NHS solutions provider for over two decades, we brought Augnito to the UK market as a disruptive technology because our vision was to democratise the use of speech recognition across the continuum of care. We knew Augnito provided the value advantage – a better and more cost effective way for healthcare professionals to leverage the cloud and AI, to easily transform their patient data workflows. Now, 30 months later, we’re supporting more than 2,000 UK radiologists who have switched to Augnito – through our partnerships – and many others directly. We couldn’t agree more with this year’s UKIO theme and message ‘Vision and Values: Putting People First’. The positive effect that the impact Augnito is having on radiologists, and on patient imaging and diagnostics reporting speaks for itself. ”

ENDS

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Notes to editors
All company names and product names listed in this press release are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.

About Scribetech (UK) Ltd and Augnito
Scribetech (UK) Ltd is a clinical solutions innovator and official distributor of Augnito products in the UK and Ireland. The company co-developed Augnito with its sister company Augnito India Private Ltd fusing 20 years of highly accurate and secure transcription and digital dictation services to the NHS, speech-to-text, and clinical coding solutions for the healthcare sector, and its own Deep Neural Network speech recognition engine with advanced voice AI technology. Augnito provides a secure, cloud-based, voice-driven AI clinical speech recognition product suite, offering fast, easy ways to capture live clinical data on any device with 99% accuracy, support for multiple medical specialities, and no need for voice profile training. Augnito brings cost effective, seamless speech recognition to daily workflows and third-party clinical systems, quickly turning medical information into documentation that makes healthcare intelligence compliant and accessible where it is needed.

A key member of a hospital’s leadership team, Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) are responsible for the capital health of the organisation. However, their financial choices, planning and budgeting also affect the health of individuals and the wider population.

In a typical hospital, CFOs strive for financial stability through effective planning, reporting, and strategic decision making. From cashflow to contract negotiations, CFOs ensure that financial resources are used effectively to deliver the best possible levels of care and seamless patient journeys.

In recent years, the financial pressure on hospitals and NHS Trusts has intensified. Rising demand, increasing costs, an ageing population, and funding shortfalls all create new challenges for CFOs everywhere. The Health Foundation expects these factors to worsen over time. In this context, CFOs must constantly balance competing priorities—and invest in new technology in a way that delivers the best possible return.

Solving major pain points (for Chief Finance Officers)

Efficiency is an overarching priority for CFOs. Driven by robust cash releasing efficiency targets from the Government, every CFO needs to improve processes, meaningfully reduce operating costs, and still maintain the highest standards of quality and care. This all needs to be achieved while ensuring healthcare professionals feel supported, both financially and in terms of workflow. The cost of 2023’s NHS strikes is an estimated £1.5 billion and the impact on operating costs and patients is hard to measure in financial terms.

While there is no single solution for a hospital’s complex operational needs, we’re confident that investment in clinical speech recognition delivers measurable value to staff and patients —without restricting the agility and financial clarity CFOs need in order to keep pace with a changing market.

Reducing overheads and increasing efficiency

At the most fundamental level, highly accurate clinical speech recognition is more affordable than manual transcription services or adding headcount to keep up with medical administration demand. When healthcare professionals can capture accurate patient notes and reports faster and more intuitively, they can work more efficiently—in short, the same number of ‘heads’ can complete a larger number of reports in the same amount of time.

Equally, cloud-based medical speech recognition like Augnito Spectra helps keep costs down by removing the need to overhaul IT infrastructures, spend capital for on-premise hardware, or employ IT teams to conduct application maintenance and upgrades.

Leveraging the investments in legacy technology already made

New technology including clinical speech recognition can also help CFOs drive even more value from the investments they’ve already made in digitisation. With an exhaustive SDK and API, Augnito’s AI platform can be easily and seamlessly integrated into any clinical system, including Electronic Patient Records (EPR). This allows 99.9% accurate speech recognition to be embedded into existing workflows, making even older software faster, easier, and more intuitive to use. Augnito can bridge legacy technology with new functionality now, without the cost of replacement—and continue to integrate with new technology when the Trust is financially and operationally ready to adopt it.

Making investments now to deliver lasting value

Amid widespread economic uncertainty, it’s difficult for CFOs to support strategic investments in new technology unless they can validate the likelihood of long-term value. A cloud hosted speech recognition platform like Augnito Spectra is scalable by design, ensuring its time-saving benefits can easily be extended to new individuals, new teams, and any location. Augnito has the flexibility to support site-wide expansion over time.

Augnito also delivers continuous improvement through machine learning, resulting in a solution that perpetually improves, even as new medical vocabulary comes into use. With a self-improving cloud solution, there’s no need to rethink, replace, and reinvest in something new in a few years.

Improving organisational agility

Finally, the only effective way to navigate economic uncertainty and unpredictable spikes in demand is with agility and flexibility. CFOs know that long-term financial commitments only diminish their ability to flex in order to meet the market, the needs of the workforce, government priorities, and population health requirements.

Augnito enables agility in an individual sense—by making speech recognition available anywhere, on any device—but also in an organisational sense, with simple recurring costs, no need to spend your capital, and options to shrink or grow your usage as required. Augnito is designed to accommodate fluctuations in staffing levels with localised user license administration for full control and options to recycle licenses for new users.

Learn more about Augnito

See how Augnito Spectra creates lasting value for hospital CFOs. Request a demo, to see the benefits for yourself.

With seemingly endless pressure on bed stocks, waiting lists, and workloads, technology is often used by the NHS for its immediate benefits. With a mindset of problem solving, trusts and healthcare providers are looking for faster, more flexible ways to work now. But the always-changing nature of healthcare means any effective technology has to consider the long term.

Speech recognition and digital transcription platforms allow healthcare professionals to capture important information wherever and whenever they need to — without waiting for time-consuming transcription or updating records manually. But a solution that saves time and delivers results today, might not be fit for purpose as our relationship with patients — and their data — continues to change.

A look back across the history of patient data shows us that change is the only constant and the only effective technology is one that’s future-proofed and always improving.

A history of patient data in the UK

Patient data and records have been a key part of UK healthcare for over a century. As far back as 1911, GPs were required to keep written records for all working-age men, supporting the government’s compulsory health insurance scheme. These paper records were deeply embedded by the time the NHS was established – a single, self-contained resource that was easy to misplace, but also easy to secure and manage.

The digital revolution saw a similar overhaul of how patient data is stored and handled. While the first use of computers for record keeping in a GP surgery date back to 1970, the two decades since the millennium have seen rapid changes to expectations around data from government and patients alike.

The NHS began widely deploying electronic health records in 2005, investing in the digital infrastructure to store and share patient data across the country. Today, we’re all familiar with electronic patient record systems (EPRs) and their role as hubs of patient data.

This ongoing change creates new and emerging requirements for technology. At the advent of the NHS, the best record keeping platform was a strong filing cabinet with a lock. Now, healthcare professionals need robust, reliable software as well as intuitive, flexible ways of interacting with that software and capturing data.

The changing nature of patient records

While the means of accessing and storing patient data is always changing over time, the nature of those records is shifting too. 2015 saw the start of an NHS initiative to let patients access summary electronic medical records and, since 2022, almost all NHS patients have been able to see their data via the NHS app.

For the healthcare professionals capturing those notes, reports, and records, this creates new pressure. With potential scrutiny from patients, it’s now more important than ever that notes are clear, detailed, content-rich and free from confusing jargon. In general, this is making patient notes longer and more complex to write, intensifying the need for a fast-yet-accurate way to work. However, in the long run, this will overcome ambiguity and misinterpretation.

Speech recognition and voice-driven AI technology has an important role to play, enabling healthcare professionals to work up to four times faster and offset some of this growing complexity by simply dictating directly into the digitised patient record.

The future of patient data: digital, secure, compliant

Finally, the digitalisation of patient data creates new obligations around security and privacy. NHS Trusts and healthcare providers need to strike the balance between enabling access to data while strengthening resilience against data breaches, accidental disclosure, and cyber-attacks. As AI continues to develop and we unlock new ways to work with, and learn from patient data, these risks are set to intensify.

Augnito Spectra is built for the digital future of patient data. With 99.3% accurate, AI-powered real-time transcription, Augnito Spectra provides a digital way to capture notes and create reports simply by speaking: a natural, human way to interact without the need to type and, more specifically with no wait for manual transcription. With integration into your EPR system, data can be securely sent to wherever it needs to be, contained within the patient record in clear language for easy authorised recollection

At the same time, Augnito Spectra is always evolving, much like the way patient data is handled. As a cloud-hosted platform, Augnito Spectra is being constantly updated with the latest features — from interface changes to security enhancements, reducing clinical risk, streamlining, and adapting to the way healthcare professionals work.

Learn more about Augnito

See how Augnito Spectra delivers measurable benefits now while future-proofing the way you capture patient data. Request a demo and see the benefits for yourself.